Social network Mozat gets leg up of up to $5mln

Social media platform provider Mozat announced its raising of a Series A founding from venture capitalist JAFCO Asia earlier this year.

The amount put in was undisclosed, but typically a Series A funding can go up to $5 million. These are usually given to companies that have achieved a certain degree of success.

Mozat is being supported by NUS Enterprise.

Mozat is a social networking platform tailored for the most popular mobile phones in the market. For consumers, Mozat™ serves as a mobile social community that allows users to connect and interact with each other as well as providing access to their favorite email, instant messaging and social gaming applications. For operators, Mozat provides an extensible, market-ready Mobile SNS platform that drives data usage and builds customer loyalty.

Its community currently has around 10 million registered users, largely in the emerging markets of Asia and the Middle East.

“Mozat’s social network platform provides a compelling value proposition for telecom
operators, application developers and users alike to benefit from the growth of the mobile internet, particularly in emerging markets. I look forward to supporting Mozat’s exceptional management team at the Board and through our extensive network in East Asia”, said RJ Sridhar, Associate Director and Deputy-Head, South Asia Investments, at JAFCO Asia.

JAFCO Asia is in the venture capital industry and its primary focus is to invest in promising technology enterprises with high-growth potential. Headquartered in Singapore, and with offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei and Seoul, JAFCO Asia has around $650m in aggregate funds under management.

It is an operating subsidiary of JAFCO Co. Ltd, which is part of the Nomura group of companies and one of the largest private equity firms in Japan and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

“The Series A investment gets us ready for prime-time. 2010 will be a deciding year for mobile social network service as we see mobile operators in emerging markets leveraging their GPRS and 3G networks to drive data usage through value added services and applications. JAFCO Asia understands the opportunities and challenges ahead and can offer tremendous help in growing Mozat to a global mobile brand,” said Dr. Michael Yin, Founder and CEO of Mozat.

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